What the heck does that mean?” she asked fiercely, her redhead’s temper coming to the fore. “And what if I don’t go along with it all? You’ll throw Robbie to the lions?”
“I should have threatened to throw him to the lions sooner,” Boyd answered very crisply. “But you will go along with it, so we no longer have to consider it. I’ll speak to my father some time this weekend.”
“Not frightened of anyone, are you?” she said caustically. “Well, I am. Please wait until I make my getaway before you speak to Rupert. He’ll be furious.”
“Are you sure you’ve got that right?” He was staring down at her with his bluer than blue eyes.
“Of course I’ve got it right,” she retorted, frowning at the question. “Little Leo stealing his precious son away?” She was trying very hard to stare him down, but she couldn’t.
“Why are you trying so hard to throw up excuses?” A vertical line appeared between his black brows. “You’re beautiful. You’re clever. You can be a handful, like now. But, that aside, you’re a real asset to the family. Any family. So why are you so incredibly insecure?”
She flushed with anger. “Maybe it’s an age thing,” she threw back with intense emotion. “You’ve got problems too, though God knows you’ve got the capacity to go about solving them. I’m twenty-four. You’re thirty. One can gain a lot of experience in six years.”
“You’re suggesting I wait until you’re thirty?”
“Thirty is fine for you.”
“I want you now, Leo,” he said. “You’re off your head if you think I’m going to give you even another year. Make it six months.”
That nearly knocked her out. “You sound absolutely mad.”
He sighed deeply. “No one but no one can make me as mad as you.”
“Yet you’re talking about marrying me. Let’s make it clear. Do we live together or do we retain separate apartments?”
“Well, it’s an idea,” he said, then began to laugh. “Don’t you think I can make you happy, Flower Face?”
She looked away from him, fighting tears. “The thing is, Boyd, you can overlook the need for love. Okay, I know we’ve got an emotionally charged relationship. You say you want me. I’m frightened to admit that I want you too. But you’re not the first man to tell me he wanted me. I don’t want to boast, but I hear it all the time. But want? What does that mean? Does it mean simply assuaging a sensual appetite?”
“It certainly does,” he said, his voice deep and sexy. “How can it not?”
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she said. “You’re always laughing at me. I need someone to love me. Really love me.” She was so overwrought she was almost shouting. “Why don’t you, Boyd?” she cried in a fresh upsurge of anguish. “There, you can’t give me an answer.” She totally ignored the fact that she had scarcely given him time to open his mouth. Instead, she spun like a ballet dancer, heading for the entrance hall.
“Leona!” he called after her.
His voice begged her to stop but she wasn’t having a bar of it. She was a woman for whom love was all important. Boyd’s love. She wasn’t a commodity to be bought on the open marketplace, she thought furiously. It was hellish to love someone the way she loved Boyd.
When she arrived back at her room she found Robbie pacing the carpet like a panther caught in a cage. “Well?” He turned to her with anguished eyes, no colour whatever in his cheeks.
Leona crossed the room to fall back on the bed. Her head was whirling with chaotic thoughts. She had to close her eyes and count to ten. After she did that, she said, “You’re off the hook.”
Robbie raised his eyes to the heavens. “Thanks be to God,” he said piously. “I think I’ll go back to church. You were able to put the earrings back?”
“Almost.” She sat up, feeling dizzy, looking more delicately lovely than ever, her chiffon skirt spread out on either side of her.
Robbie’s expression turned to one of dread. “You were caught?”
She nodded. “It happens, Robbie,” she said sombrely, at the same time wanting to put him out of his misery. “Boyd chose that very moment to come downstairs to turn off the lights. He saw me in the drawing room.”
“Holy Mother!” Robbie was so overtaken by weakness he had to slump down on the opulent day bed. “You must have been terrified.”
Even now she couldn’t suppress her feelings of panic. “Of course I was, but I felt enormous relief that it was Boyd. What if it had been Rupert?”
Robbie gave an agitated laugh. “True, we’d have had to emigrate to Antarctica. So what happened?”
“That’s for you to find out,” she said, feeling unable to explain much further. She had to sleep on Boyd’s extraordinary proposal. She was already well into convincing herself that it smacked of a convenient way out for him. When they weren’t striking sparks off one another, they did get along extremely well. Naturally she would in time be expected to produce an heir or heiress, so it was really a marriage of convenience. A lot of people settled for that. Rich people more than most.
“Listen, Robbie. Boyd wants you to meet him in the hall at ten o’clock sharp,” she said, forcing herself upright. “The two of you are going for a little walk. You wouldn’t want him swearing at you in the house.”
Robbie began madly slicking his dark hair back. “Boyd doesn’t swear even when he’s angry. The most I’ve heard is the odd bloody. So you told him? Why not? I am to blame. I should never have let you.”
“You’ll be pleased to hear I didn’t tell him, Robbie,” Leona said. “But Boyd knows me too well. He knows I wouldn’t have taken the earrings. He guessed you had. He knows all about the bad people you’re involved with.”
Robbie remained very still. “So what’s he going to do?” He looked straight at her, awaiting her response much as a man in the dock would await a jury’s verdict.
“I’ve told you, Robbie. Boyd sees you as being cushioned by wealth. Now that I’ve been forced to think about it, you are. Look at that suit. It must have cost a couple of thousand. Dad gives you a comfortable allowance. You’ll get your degree and, if you want it, you’ll be given a good position within Blanchards. I’m very sympathetic towards your personal problems. Why wouldn’t I be? I have them as well. It’s the old story of an unstable childhood, but we’ve survived and we have so much else, after all. You have to liberate yourself, Robbie. Not keep drinking from the poisoned well. Find your father. Confront him. You could go in the summer vacation. For all you know, Carlo might be thrilled out of his mind to see you.”
Robbie gave a bitter laugh. “I’ll ask him why he never invited me. But the big question is—am I going to be free to travel? It was a very bad thing I did, taking the earrings.”
“The only thing worse would’ve been for you to try to wear them,” Leona said, trying for some light relief. “It was a bad thing, Robbie. An insane
